


Exposition

by Bidawee



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Crush at First Sight, M/M, Muses, Pining, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 18:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20894333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bidawee/pseuds/Bidawee
Summary: The square is Zach’s favourite place to write.It hosts a university-funded burger joint, an empty row of condiment jars, a gluten-free sandwich shop that makes smoothies, and the loveliest boy in the whole world.





	Exposition

**Author's Note:**

> detailed warnings are in the end notes!
> 
> these two are in IR together but it turns out they've been buddy-buddy for some time now? they're really cute. anyway: thanks to ally for the idea. i plan to delve more into these two in the future.

The square is Zach’s favourite place to write.

It hosts a university-funded burger joint, an empty row of condiment jars, a gluten-free sandwich shop that makes smoothies, and the loveliest boy in the whole world.

His name is Travis. He was in Zach’s Introductory to English Studies seminar last year: noticeable from the first class. He would always raise his hand, remember that they’re not in high school, and then resume speaking without a prick of embarrassment reddening his face. 

He had--_ has _ the biggest blue eyes. A single distracting curl can always be seen hanging over his forehead. Travis was always made aware of it, tucking it behind one ear only for it to spring back into place a minute later.

Over the semester, Zach got to learn more about him--a _ lot _ about him. It’s been his shtick since high school to actually participate in class discussion but it was almost worth keeping his mouth shut just to hear Travis speak. Over debate, he was the only person who could keep up with Zach and not just that, but he did it with a smile in his voice _ and on his face. _ If it was anyone else, his actions would be condescending. Instead, they make Zach melt into the earth.

And his eyes--they grip him. One look and he’s in, submerged underwater. It takes a whole paragraph just to unpack how they make him feel. His descriptions never jump from his tongue in the same way he envisions it in his head.

Thin lips. Zach spends a lot of words describing them. It bumps his word count up by quite a bit. 

Long fingers. They move like they’re submerged in molasses--

Zach has an hour in between his anatomy lecture and his creative writing course. By now, he has a seat he’s staked a claim on, in front of the large square-shaped windows opening the square up to the light of the sun outside. He’s close to the cash register and has the beep of the accepted PIN noise down to memory. 

Travis sits with his friends from Linguistics about four tables away, by the coin-insert soda machine. From where Zach sits, no obstructions are keeping him from watching and Travis never looks in his direction anyway. Or if does, Zach is never looking up to see it.

It’s one hour, once a week, that he has to himself. It’s when writing isn’t work: he can just be. Since finding this spot, and Travis, six weeks ago, it feels like every assignment he cranks out for his class has blended into the image of a boy he can’t have. He can’t help it. It’s the only time he gets writing done. It’s also the only time he sees Travis. The collaboration is almost inevitable.

But that’s old news.

It’s his week to publish a short story for the school’s paper, something he signed up for God knows how long ago. He’s long since abandoned his personal projects in favour of writing love notes so he’s not surprised at the fact that the document he made for this purpose is empty. He’s also lacking in the available story ideas department; coming by new ones is harder than it sounds. 

What he ends up going with is an older piece of work he finds in his Drive and cleans the cobwebs off of. It’s from September of this year but that doesn’t mean he recognizes most of what he did nor conventions and comparisons he used. His thought process is all over the place and it takes close to an hour to untangle all the loose ends and make sense of what he wrote. 

The story is plain. About a boy from the ocean who washes up on the beach. A man finds him and nurses him back to health, then has to make a decision about whether or not to let him go back. It’s two-and-a-half pages long, counting the disjointed sentences with no ends.

He touches it up, deletes the scraps at the bottom of page three, and sends it to the printer. There’s one unfinished job trying to finish, the file name aaaa1.pdf. It could be Kappy’s handiwork--he’s been in and out all day running errands while studying for midterms--but it makes no difference to him. He removes it and puts his work through, keeping an eye on the shadows moving downstairs.

It’s not official on the lease they signed but it’s become standard for the guys to pay their dues by reading his unfinished work for him. It’s not often he comes to them for a second opinion but when it counts, they’re a resource that saves him from posting on his class’ discussion board, looking for someone who’s just as busy as him to do him a favour.

Tonight, it’s Willy. Last he heard of him, he was hammering his thesis to bits. It looks like he's made no significant progress since then. When Zach approaches him, he snaps out of it. His eyes clear.

“You got something for me?”

“For the Gazette. They want the creative writing group to publish a story each week and this one’s mine.”

Willy pushes his shoulders back until they pop. “Oh. So not a project.”

“You don’t have to look over it as _ thoroughly, _ but I’d still say it’s important.”

“Yeah yeah, give it to me.” Willy pushes his computer forward. Zach can see lines of yellow highlighting covering every inch of the document.

Zach looks back at him. “I even printed it in big font, so you’ll be able to read it this time.” 

Willy gives him the finger but tears into the opening paragraph with his eyes. He briefly reaches up to fix the positioning of his glasses, pushing the lenses closer to his face.

Zach leaves him be, opening cupboard doors, looking for the dish soap to tackle the growing stack of plants to the left of the basin. It keeps moving around the house, depending on who used it last. After a minute of looking from top to bottom, including underneath the sink, he gives up. He reaches into the pantry, digs out multigrain crackers, and pours a good amount into a plastic bowl.

It takes Willy about ten minutes to get through the whole thing. Zach always knows when he’s done: the tell-tale click of his glasses placed down on the table combined with his chair pushing out. Willy never likes to deal with his business at the table.

“Well,” Willy clears his throat, “it’s okay.”

Zach is in the middle of pouring himself a glass of orange juice. “Just okay?”

“I think you got a great idea but you spend too much time describing the boy. He’s this great character, fantastical and with powers beyond our greatest imagination, but you’re spending our time telling us what he looks like.”

“It’s the principle of it all.” Zach shuts the fridge door. “I want the reader to see what I’m seeing.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to read a hundred words about how his eyelashes are so long they almost touch his eyebrow, I want to read about the love story. Plus, many people just aren’t going to read it because it’s so raunchy.”

Zach bites the inside of his cheek. “I don’t think the word ‘raunchy’ applies when there’s no sex involved.”

“Well, here it does. That’s my piece.” Willy throws the print-out on the dining table, stretching his arms over his head. “Am I free to go?”

“Do what you want.” Zach picks up the stack of papers in one hand. The paperclip is beginning to slip and the paper in the back is already loose.

In his mind, the adjectives are what make the story so powerful. It’s a love story, about bringing people together. The boy’s name might not be Travis in the story but he’s his equal, and when faced with incorporating a face into writing the small details are what flesh out the image in his head. But he supposes Willy has a point. His judgement has never done wrong by Zach in the past.

He trims the paragraphs down and slips in some dialogue to make it more palatable to his audience. It’s a weak measure. He never intended for it to be a simple read; not everyone is going to be able to swallow it in one sitting. It’s a pleasantry, and nothing more.

Later that night, his finger trembles over the trackpad, when the highlighted portions are fixed and he’s scoured the words for any typos, going so far as to read it out loud to himself. The words are familiar to him, they’re the ones he can never bring himself to speak. But reading his paper protects him, binding his thoughts to a confessional that no one can press through. The words that are supposed to make sense of his attraction only complicate them further. Is this what he’s feeling, or is this an example of those feelings dripped through a filter until they’re presentable to the public eye?

He clicks the submit button and the words in his head go quiet.

But even though the work is in the hands of the editors and publishers who are leagues above his spot as a freelance writer, he’s back in his spot next Thursday looking for his muse. 

Maybe if Travis was _ just _ a crush or _ just _ a muse, he could break away. But he’s both. Every week, without fail, Zach falls in love all over again. 

This time, he can’t help but admire Travis’ hands, how they trace the rim of his reusable mug and form a complete circuit. Travis is speaking about something he holds a lot of passion for: his pupils are small and dart in every direction. He almost catches Zach looking.

Zach’s not close enough to hear what topic they’re discussing, unfortunately, but it’s worth watching just to see how Travis’ wrinkles stretch to accommodate the blind happiness on his face. His smile is contagious. 

He opens up a new document. No name yet, that will come two days into the process when a word or song lyric touches him. 

_ Your words have become my liquor. Let’s get drunk and dance on the starry shore, together. _

They enter his head like a burst. He jumps to scribe them before they disappear, as they so often do when he’s staring at the back of Travis’ head. Poetry is not his area of strength but it feels appropriate here. If he was writing this by hand, it would be in cursive.

In an hour, their time is up and they go their separate ways. Zach knows what will happen next: Travis will finish his last class then go to the bus stop south of Queen so that he can beat the line-up of students that get the west stop. The two extra minutes are worth a seat on the back. Meanwhile, Zach’s going to be stuck here. That makes it sound like he hates his creative class--he doesn’t. He just wishes he had more than an hour.

Maybe a small, subconscious part of his mind recognizes that this is his last week of peace. Watching Travis leave without having said a word of warning to him feels wrong.

He gets an email on Sunday, telling him to ‘look out for his work in the upcoming issue’ when the newspaper racks get replenished. It lights the nerves inside of him with a white-hot flame. He can’t even remember what he wrote--he can’t even remember if it was _ good _. And maybe what Willy said was right: he should have focused more on reality than a vision of goodness.

On Tuesday, his name is right there, under the title. “Unfathomed Kiss”. At the time, it seemed fitting but it feels kind of pretentious now that he sees it in ink. There’s nothing he can do about it now except sulk, and throw the issue in the recycling bin on his way out the door.

He gets a few texts from close friends and work colleagues that are in the same clubs as him and hold the same interests but the story doesn’t push him to stardom. No one responds to it, not even the parody publication on the other side of campus. He should consider himself lucky.

He never put much thought into how other people would read the story. It’s based on a real person. For someone else, maybe they see something entirely different. He doesn’t have control over that. It’s not a confession. If it was, he would replace ‘the boy’ with Travis and let the rest of the world come to their own conclusions.

Although that doesn’t seem like it’ll be necessary.

Zach shows up to his spot on Thursday ten minutes early--an unplanned fire alarm pull was able to dismiss them before the clock did. While not entirely sure what to do with the new-found freedom, he knows it’s going to involve his computer and a pad of liner paper.

For a few minutes, he putters around the thesaurus site, looking for adjectives to replace an ever-growing list of words he refuses to use. He’s not even paying attention to what’s in front of him when a hand flattens itself to the table.

“Hey, Zach.” He looks up and there’s Travis. At his table. He’s beaming. “Can I sit?”

“By all means.” Zach gestures at the open chair. He manually has to shut his mouth.

Travis takes a seat. His smile widens.

“I read your story.”

What feels like icicles prick Zach’s heart. He wants to smack himself in the head. Of course Travis reads the paper, he was talking about the climate issue not two weeks ago.

“Oh.” He ends on a hard note. It sounds like he was cut off in the middle of saying something else.

“Yeah. It was really good.” His sentence comes out on a string of breath. It’s airy. Enthused.

Travis continues: “I know it’s like, weird of me to come here and say that. Justin said he saw you walk in.”

“I don’t mind,” Zach says. He’s teeter-tottering back and forth: unsure how to feel. It feels too early to celebrate.

“Yeah, it was just--I don’t know. It hit something in me. And then I read your name and it all made sense.”

“My name?”

“Yeah! You have such a serious way of writing. But it’s very majestic. What’s the word I’m looking for...sophisticated! Yes.”

Travis doesn’t know how he writes. He read one of Zach’s essay outlines and a reflection paper marked as a pass/fail by the TA later that day. There’s no way the words hit a node inside of him. But Zach--he’s a fool. He’s ready to suspend his disbelief just because of the narrative it creates.

“Was there any part you liked the most?”

“I liked when the boy was walking back to the sea and we chased after them. You said something like, ‘a bouquet of stars in the sky, kissing his jaw,” or--you would know better than I would. It was powerful.”

The stars. Zach would’ve thought the massage of the undertow would snag Travis’ attention. He’s learning a lot today.

He tries to keep talking so that Travis won’t notice him staring. “My housemate thought it was too much.”

“I’m the guy that loves romance, what can I say.” 

Zach swoons. He knows. Travis nurses from old 70s romance novels; traces the words with the tips of his fingers as if they will stir up some of the fairy dust. It feels good to hear him say it to his face, however.

“You know,” Travis’ voice shakes him out of his thoughts, “if you’re finding your proofreaders aren’t working, you could always send them to me.”

“Oh yeah?”

“You’re in the creative writing course, yeah? I was hoping to enroll in it next year to balance out my schedule. Figured I should get some practice.”

Zach bumps his shoulders up. “Am I the only person you know that’s in it?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, I could always use the extra help, thanks.” He swallows. “Do you always come here on Thursdays?”

“Pretty much. My next class is on the third floor. Means I have to walk less.”

“Maybe we should sit together sometime and brainstorm. I’d love to hear your thoughts.”

“Yeah, I’d like that.” Travis backs up. “Well, I’m going to go put my smoothie order in. You want anything?”

Zach holds his right hand up. “No thank you. What are you getting?”

“Some kale, banana, and minced ginger blend.” Travis’ smile is finally displaced by his disgust. “Not my favourite but we’re hitting the gym after.”

“Ah.”

Travis raises his chin. “I’ll see you later.”

“See you.” Zach’s words drag. He watches the bob of Travis’ shoulders through the current of people until the bright green signage has stolen him away.

Zach takes a deep breath. He replenishes the cavity of his lungs with all the air he can give them. A great deal of it was depleted in the minute he had Travis’ eyes on him.

The thoughts in his head begin to multiply. Travis didn’t know--how could he? Zach doesn’t know how to feel. Is he angry that Travis wasn’t able to see? Is he grateful he couldn’t? Would Travis even admit that he did know? For Zach, it’s so obvious that the sharp chin and dimples on the boy could belong to none other than Travis himself. It’s probably a lot less obvious to the untrained eye.

What Travis has given him is an opportunity: something he can use to show what he’s capable of, maybe romance him from the other side of the paper. Zach could make him so woozy with love if a simple description of the night sky is enough to make him swoon. That and so much more. 

These are the words that will fall from Zach’s mouth, unscripted.

He cracks his knuckles, then turns back to the page.

**Author's Note:**

> zach's character is questionable: he stalks travis on numerous occasions to learn more about him for his writing. he writes about travis in the form of a character and projects his affections onto him. he has not physically acted on his crush yet. it's bordering on obsessive behaviour but hasn't met the threshold yet.
> 
> i feel required to say i don't write poetry. at the beginning i was somewhat inspired by literary blazon but yeah. not my strong suit. it might be hard to read.
> 
> come talk to me on my [tumblr](https://cursivecherrypicking.tumblr.com/)


End file.
